Chapter 989

Inside Gao Ta, Young Yuanzi was leaning against the wall. With the three-day deadline not yet over, there was simply nothing worth paying attention to, so she had no choice but to watch an utterly boring farce.

"Why can't you still provide the visual feed? If, if there is still no news of my Gaara's team, the situation will spiral out of control! When the time comes, the one coming to demand them from you will be our Kazekage, my lord!"

That man seemed to be called Ma Ji.

If it weren't for Gaara's sake, Young Yuanzi would never have remembered the name of a guy like this. Her impression was that he was a fairly steady person, so how could he be losing his temper at Mitarashi Anko now?

"Before entering the second exam, surely your team didn't actually sign a life-and-death waiver, did they? And you've even taken it upon yourself to escalate the matter to the level of the Kages — doesn't that make things very awkward for many of the people here?"

Mitarashi Anko, the little tail who had followed Orochimaru around since childhood, could never be a soft egg for anyone to knead.

In fact, when she got venomous with her tongue, she did have a bit of a venomous snake's look about her.

Ma Ji's face grew even uglier than before. Setting aside the fact that Kankuro, Temari, and Gaara were all the Kazekage's own children, the mere fact that Gaara was the "One-Tails Jinchuriki," the Sand Village's "important weapon," was enough to make Konoha realize the Yan Zhongxing of the problem — yet this was precisely why he could not speak such a thing aloud.

"Those three people on that team are all the Kazekage's children; I am only asking you to restore the visual feed immediately. Moreover, even if there were a life-and-death waiver, if the Sand Village Kazekage's three children all met with accidents during a single exam, can your Konoha truly remain unscathed?"

Faced with Ma Ji's questioning, Mitarashi Anko could only shrug. "Got it, got it, I'll have the communications team restore the visual feed as soon as possible, and I'll dispatch Leaf Anbu right away... no, how about I go personally? Satisfied?"

"It better be!" Ma Ji was no fool; of course he could hear the sting in Mitarashi Anko's words. However, what mattered more right now was confirming the One-Tails' stability and the safety of the three. Gaara had conjured a stretch of desert out of thin air in the jungle, and after that no new visual feed had come through — the unease in his heart was mounting with every passing moment.

Young Yuanzi watched everything unfolding before her. She understood why Ma Ji was so beside himself, yet she had no intention of joining in.

There was one thing that weighed on her mind.

According to the original plot's development, Gaara should only have begun to reveal his strength during the third match against Rock Lee afterward — so what kind of change had caused him to unleash the demon in his heart during the second match?

"Like a deer that has sensed a predator? But it is utterly meaningless. This one's target is not you this time; I shall permit you to be kept penned by humans a little longer." Kaguya-hime's gaze paused briefly in the direction where a sudden eruption of Tailed Beast power had flared and then swiftly contracted, and then she continued onward without the slightest reluctance.

"Little Miss, you're from Konoha, aren't you? Looking at your eyes — you wouldn't happen to be from the Hyuga clan with those 'Byakugan,' would you?" He rested the ninja blade in his hand on his shoulder, his entire body shrouded in a specially-made raincoat, and he still wore the gas mask that never left his person — a look that was very Rain ninja.

"Looks like your teammates weren't all eliminated, were they? Tsk tsk, hand over the scroll and we might consider letting you go." Their side had three people, and based on what they had been able to confirm over the previous stretch of time, this girl from the Hyuga family was alone. Even so, she had not given up on the exam; they firmly believed she had a scroll on her.

The last Rain ninja said impatiently. In order to confirm that there really were no other teammates lying in ambush near Kaguya-hime, they had been following nervously for a long time, and by now their patience was long gone.

"—Why all the nonsense? Just snatch it and be done with it."

"The Rinne Sharingan, now fully formed, has what is called a successor. Hagoromo, you must surely be able to see something through those eyes, yes? In that case, try looking. This one intends to place her pieces right beneath your very nose." From beginning to end, Kaguya-hime paid no attention to the situation around her; she maintained her pace of stepping forward without the slightest deviation, as though these three people did not exist.

The Rain ninja who had come out first, directly blocking her path forward, was extremely displeased with Kaguya-hime's utterly unresponsive attitude.

"Hey, hey, hey, you're just ignoring us?" As someone who had come from the Rain ninja (or so-so) village, he had a certain premonition of danger. He had already sensed something was off — the girl before them simply did not regard the three of them at all.

Those Byakugan, the pale-blue pupils slightly dilated and completely unfocused — even at this moment the other party was calmly observing the scene in the distance. Even though a voice inside was telling him: it would be better to retreat first, the feeling of being ignored like air by another person still won out.

"Looks like you won't hand over the scroll obediently, then we'll just have to take it by force!" He did not attack with the ninja blade in his hand; instead, from the sleeve of his other hand a great volume of water surged forth. With a wave he flung it up into the sky, and an artificial "rain curtain" took shape.